Two races in and it’s hard to really assess how this season is going to pan out given that the two races have led to six different people on the podium, but already there are some clear winners and losers among the teams.

This is how I think the teams have faired in the season openers:

Ferrari :  Last year’s champions, but they are going to struggle to retain the title if they carry on as they are.  Uncharacteristic mechanical failures have resulted in a lot of the drivers’ time being spent off the track.  The drivers haven’t covered themselves in glory either, with both falling off the track in Melbourne before Massa repeated the mistake in Malaysia.

I make no secret of the fact that I have been a fan of David Coulthard since he entered F1 in 1994.

DC grew up in south-west Scotland like myself, so the fact that a local boy had made it to the very top of his chosen profession - coupled with the fact that this profession happened to be my favourite sport and was televised every other week made it all the easier for me to follow and support him through his career.

Heading into this season, there were changes to certain rules in Formula 1 including those which concerned the period when the Safety Car was on track.

The Safety Car is only deployed when there has been a crash or some other such incident which has caused the race officials to conclude the circuit is in a condition which makes it unsafe for the cars to continue at race speeds. Because the lap times were therefore increased as the cars were driving much slower, it was an ideal time to make a pitstop to take on more fuel as you would in essence lose less time relative to the cars still on track.